Truly
by 2sidedstoryteller29995
Summary: "Don't you dare lie to me, George Fabian Weasley!" Angelina confronts George about something Roxanne said. Set in the aftermath of 'Right Here.'


"_Oliver, calm down!' said Fred, looking slightly alarmed. 'We're taking Hufflepuff very seriously. __Seriously-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. _

As he climbed the stairs to the apartment, he could not help but notice how quiet it was. He hung slung his jacket over the back of the kitchen chair and went over to the counter. Turning to his wife, he murmured. "Do you want a cup of tea love?" She nodded absently. He flicked his wand at the kettle, before taking two mugs from the draining board.

"Roxie went along with the others, no problem" she commented. George smiled, thinking of how his daughter had been the first one to step onto the Hogwarts Express. She had waved out the window to them, excited to be off. In her smile, he saw nothing but happiness.

"Yeah, she seemed fine about it," he answered. He tried to keep his voice level, so that he did not arouse suspicion. He made his way back to the table, set the cups down, and settled himself in the chair across from her.

She went on, "I guess I shouldn't have doubted her." George stirred his cup.

"I suppose, I thought she might have had a hard time, you know, after last night,"

George set down the spoon, shooting her a questioning glance. "She told you then? I was not sure if she would. She was pretty embarrassed last night," he explained.

George was not a hypocrite. The Weasley twins' motto growing up was _what they don't know won't hurt them. _This most often applied to their mother. She took a very different view to them, when it came to pranks. They never wrote home to her about them unless necessary. They did not relish the thought of receiving a Howler in the morning post.

With the memory of Roxie's distress the night before still fresh in his mind, he had told her that she didn't _have_ to tell her mother, though he advised her to do so. She had been grateful that she could trust him. It seemed she trusted him enough to take his advice.

She nodded. "We just had a bit of a chat. There didn't seem to be any need to make a big deal out of it, she seemed to be no worse for wear."

There was a thoughtful pause. George's mind was on his daughter, but he could not shake the feeling there was something he had forgotten. He racked his brains and eventually it came to him. He slapped his forehead in frustration. As if on cue, his stomach growled.

"I forgot to ask. Do you want a sandwich?"

Angelina looked at him oddly, as though food was the last thing on her mind. "No, no, I'm fine..."

He smiled at her. "Looks like I'm not the only one away with the fairies today. I suppose we're getting senile in our old age." His tone was light and easy, he had been hoping to coax a smile out of her but no such luck.

"You're sure you don't one? I'm going to make myself one as it's almost lunchtime. I can just as easily make you one too; you can't be sure what time you'll be getting back tonight..."

Angelina was heading to Montrose that afternoon to hold the preliminary stage of Quidditch trials for the new season. As all of the kids were back at school, it was bound to be a slow day in the shop. Rather than open up, he thought he might spend the day working on the refinement of some of their latest inventions.

"George! I told you I am fine. Please... Please just sit down,"

He did as he was told, though in all honesty he wanted nothing more than to do the exact opposite. He had a horrible feeling he knew what was coming. Generally, when a woman asked you to sit down, that phrase was almost always followed by the words 'I need to tell you something' and that was never a good sign.

"It's... it's about Roxie." George's surprise quickly turned to concern. _Whatever happened to not making a big deal? Whatever happened to her being fine?_

"When we spoke, she mentioned something... something you said." She was looking directly at him as she spoke.

"To be honest, I found it strange. I found it odd, that _she_ would know about that you had panic attacks, especially since I hadn't a clue." Her stare was icy. George reached for her hand but she shook him off.

George didn't know what to say to her. "Angel, she was in such a state... I would have said anything to calm her down..."

"So you lied to her?" Her temper was rising, as was her voice. "Or is it me you've been lying to all these years? It seems as though she knows more about you than I do." George fought to keep his voice level.

Their eyes met. "You know that's not true. I haven't been lying to anyone."

"So you're saying you've never had a panic attack?"

He looked away. "I never said that... Listen, you never asked, so I didn't tell you."

"I never asked. What kind of excuse is that? How many times did I work alongside you? How many evenings after the war, did we sit and talk? It never crossed your mind to mention it then? I haven't spent a night away from you, not since Fred was born. All those nights, it didn't occur to you to tell me?"

"I had no need to tell you." His looked distant.

Her voice had changed, she was pleading with him. She sighed. "I'm asking now. Just tell me. How long did it go on? Is it still going on?"

"No, it... It didn't go on that long..." As he said it, he reached up to scratch his one remaining ear. Angelina instantly recognised the tell-tale gesture.

Suddenly, she was on her feet. "Don't you dare lie to me, George Fabian Weasley! How long? How long did they go on for?" Wearily, George got to his feet. He could not sit there, with her gaze bearing down on him. Though he quickly discovered that moving about didn't offer much of an improvement. Their bright and cosy kitchen, suddenly felt cramped. As he paced the room, he ran his fingers through his hair.

"They went on for a while after the war... I think they stopped sometime after Victoire was born... maybe March?" _That was true. Sometime after she was born, Dominique was born and sometime after that, they stopped. _

Angelina was speechless. George went on. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure they stopped in March 2003."

She started to sob. "Oh George! How could you have kept this from me for so long? I could have helped you... I could have..." She burst into tears. She did not only cry for her husband, she cried for her father, who had died peacefully in his sleep a few short weeks before. She thought of all the things she could have done to make his last days memorable if only she had _known. _She cried for all the things that had been left unsaid between them.

She had known her mother wouldn't have been able to face her first night back in the family home. She had gone to be with her. She had not known her daughter would have need of her too.

She had not known this was going to happen. She did not know what to do now.

"You did. You did help," George murmured. He reached for her hand and this time, she did not protest. He slid his arms around her and held her as she cried into his chest.

He said gently. "Do you remember when we got together?" She sniffed, wiping her eyes.

"Why does that matter?" She mumbled.

He smiled. "It matters, it really does." He took a deep breath.

" I need you to listen to me. I need you to understand. The only reason I didn't feel the need to tell you about them was because I've never had one, in all the years we've been together. After Fred's death, I struggled to get through even one day at a time. The thought of a future without him frightened me almost to death. It wasn't until we got together that the fear subsided. Suddenly, the thought of the future didn't send me into a panic. I actually looked forward to it, because it wasn't just my future anymore, it was our future."

Angelina put her hand to her mouth in shock, as her eyes filled with tears once more. "Really?"

"Really and truly," he replied.


End file.
